"The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-cognitive Outcomes: Field Experimental Evidence from a Developing Country" - A Reproducibility and Replicability Assessment of Islam et al. (2021)

Jörg Ankel-Peters, Gunther Bensch, Abel Brodeur, Christina Sarah Hauser, Florian Neubauer and Julian Rose

No 340, I4R Discussion Paper Series from The Institute for Replication (I4R)

Abstract: Using a randomized controlled trial, Islam, Lee and Nicholas (2021) study the impact of a short-term chess program for primary school children on over 15 cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, with a particular focus on time and risk preferences. The only significant effect is a reduction of children's risk aversion. This main finding of the paper survives the robustness checks proposed in this reproduction analysis. The study is not pre-registered. A pre-analysis plan is not available but would have been desirable given that over 20 hypotheses are tested. As part of a broader forensic review of research conducted in the same region by members of the author team, we additionally assess the integrity of this study's data and documentation. Raw data were not provided because the subcontractor, according to the authors, "does not store the data for an extended period". We can nevertheless show that the study's sample overlaps with the sample of other studies that have been withdrawn or retracted in the meantime. We provide evidence that much of the study sample was likely exposed to another treatment shortly before the chess treatment - an overlap that is not mentioned in the paper. Last, we reveal several anomalies - most notably, highly unusual distributions of risk-preference choices in two schools, with responses concentrated at opposite extremes of the risk scale that amplify the only significant finding of the paper.

Date: 2026
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